Research On Procedure Criminal Pretrial Conference In China

In criminal trial proceedings, the prosecution pre-trial meeting is theintermediate procedure that connects sues and trials, and it belongs to trial preparationprocedures. Most countries have intermediate procedure in criminal trial proceedings.Though there exist minor differences of names and contents in different countries, thefunctions of intermediate procedure are similar, which are confirmation of avoidance,court witness list, exclusion of illegal evidences, determination of the emphasis andcontention, improving the efficiency of trial.In China, provisions related to intermediate procedure is in “Code of criminalprocedure,2012”, namely the provision stated in second paragraph of clause182:“before the trial, judges can summon the public procurator, litigant, and advocate toconfirm and listen to their views about problems related to trials such as avoidanceand court witness personnel, exclusion of illegal evidences.” This procedure is animplanted intermediate procedure, which broke the direct transition from sue to trialin the procedure of criminal trial. Existing law does not have a definition on thisprocedure. Educational circles and actual practice circles have named it “pre-trialmeeting”, which marked the first establishment of pre-trial meeting procedure.However, provisions on pre-trial meeting of existing law are too general, furtherimprovements are needed in juridical practice. Therefore, this article discusses theimprovement of pre-trial meeting procedure, and lays out a particular proposition.The whole article is divided into four parts.The first part is about basic theories of pre-trial meeting. A summary of pre-trialmeeting is discussed first to clarify the definition of pre-trial procedure, anddifferences between this procedure and pre-trial procedure, pre-trial preparationprocedure. In this article, pre-trial meeting procedure is the preparation procedure that judges summon, if necessary by their judge, public prosecutor, litigant, and advocateto a meeting to confirm and listen to their views about problems related to trials suchas avoidance and court witness personnel, exclusion of illegal evidences before thepeople’s court decides to hold hearings to cases of public prosecution according to thejudges’ duties and application of prosecutors and advocates. And then, discusses thesignificance of pre-trial procedure from the view of criminal trial valuation andobjective. And finally proposes that in the improvement of pre-trial meetingprocedure, the requirements of justice and efficiency valuation should be respected,the goals punishing crimes and assurance of human rights should be unified.The second part describes pre-trial meeting procedures overseas. From the viewof system origin, pre-trial meeting procedure is a planted-in intermediate procedurebetween sue and trial. Most overseas countries have intermediate procedure in theprocedure of trial, though different names are used. China has named the intermediateprocedure as pre-trial meeting. The “pre-trial meeting” in this article should beviewed as “intermediate procedure” semantically. This article has studied the pre-trialmeeting procedures of the UK, the USA, Germany, France, and Japan, andsummarized some beneficial practices for our reference.The third part is some comments on criminal pre-trial meeting procedure of ourcountry, focusing on existing problems of pre-trial meeting analysis, and providefactual basis for improving the pre-trial meeting procedure of our country.The fourth part of this article is the most significant. Three principles ofimproving pre-trial meeting procedure are discussed, enlightenment of pre-trialmeeting of other countries to us are summarized. Focusing on start of pre-trialmeeting, evidence disclosure, meeting effectiveness etc., suggestions of improvingpre-trial meeting procedure are proposed. Hence fully realize functions and value ofpre-trial meeting procedure.